sandra zaiter He died this afternoon at the age of 78. The children’s program entertainer, singer, composer, writer, musician and pedagogue was confined in a hospital in the metropolitan area, confirmed to The new day a source close to the artist.
Zaiter has been one of the most beloved figures on Puerto Rican television and stood out for his social and educational work throughout his life. She came to this land as a child with her parents from the Dominican Republic, a country where she was born to a Lebanese father and a mother of Italian roots.
Her first professional calling was teaching and, since she was 19 years old, without having finished her bachelor’s degree in Pedagogy from the University of Puerto Rico, she worked as a teacher.
A race like few
His foray into television was by chance. It happened when they offered to replace Rita Aragón, daughter of Emilio Aragón, better known as Miliki, in the children’s program Telecómicas.
Later, she got the opportunity to work as a teacher in the educational program “Break Room”a production of American origin.
Later, he was in charge of the program “Sandra in Rikaland”which was broadcast by Rikavisión (Channel 7), together with the puppeteer Filipo Tirado in the role of “The Professor”.
Many think that, were it not for the accident suffered on the island of Icacos on September 13, 1975could have achieved international fame.
That day, Sandra shared a day at the beach and before leaving she decided to take “the last dip”, with the misfortune that the tide went out and her body crashed against the rocks, breaking his cervical and being in a quadriplegic state. Despite this event, his genius, energy and strength of spirit enabled him to carry on.
“I have always been a teacher, that is my vocation, that has been my purpose in life and I had the immense privilege of being one through television with a microphone and a camera in a small studio. The message reached thousands of families. I had the privilege that parents entrusted their children to me through television”, he once commented to The new day.
Known to children as “Titi Sandra”He never had children of his own. With the rupture of the vertebrae, her aspirations of one day becoming a mother also disappeared by obligation. Later, he compensated with the love he received from boys and girls of several generations of Puerto Ricans. She too, she was loved by her pets, birds and cats that equally shared her skirt, her caresses and her care.
After the accident in Icacos, the six months that “Titi Sandra” was in a rehabilitation treatment in New York was replaced by many artists such as the sisters Lisette Y Olguita Avarez, Tony Croatto, Glorivee Y Rachel Monterowho took on the task of keeping the project current.
Sandra, a beautiful, tall woman, always smiling, loved to dance and jump with the children who attended her program on Rikavisión, Channel 7, to the rhythm of songs of her own that she also performed. After rehabilitation, she returned to the program, but without her little ones, since she could no longer care for them from a wheelchair.
The artist had two boyfriends; the first, her classmate from Colegio Santa Mónica, Nelson Graywho later became a noted neurosurgeon, and Ettorean Italian he met in Florence, Italy, when he spent six months there with his maternal grandfather.
The love that young man awakened in her made her forget her vocation to become a nun, but not enough to marry him and go live in Italy.
Just when she suffered the accident, she received a letter from the young Italian, who was not aware of the situation, which made her very sad.
“In the letter, Ettore told me that he had gotten married and the news was accompanied by a photo of his wife. That shook me and I wondered then what my life would be like if I had gotten married and gone to live in Italy as he wanted.”, he expressed.
Over the years, the cheerleader decided to tell her life in a book. It was not something planned, she had not even considered it, just as she did not imagine the relief that reliving the last 37 years represented.
“It was a huge catharsis, where I cried alone here, in front of my computer, because there were very hard moments, very difficult, because as you recount them you relive them; and trying to put all the details one is letting out the emotions”narrated.
His biography, “Seagull in flight with broken wing”published in 2009, begins with the narrative of the pastime that changed his life.
“I accepted that moment, thank God, practically from the first day, because I had an experience that, in fact, I begin by recounting in the book, where my spirit left the body and where God gave me the opportunity to return to the body.although difficult things awaited me, or leave it there, but things were going to be missing for me to solve, so I made the decision to return to the body, “he revealed.
The “difficult things” he was referring to were the ulcers from the position in the wheelchair, the constant infections from his condition. Also, in 1992, he had his bladder removed and a conduit placed through a procedure called a urostomy.
His story was brought to television
“Seagull of Hope” was a unit based on the life of the most beloved “titi” in Puerto Rico produced by angela meyer and starring Elijah Enid Cadilla.
“I was very shocked when I saw it finished, because I was away from the filming. Above all, the part when Elia broke her neck in the unit when she jumped from the rock into the sea”detailed the artist.
In the story it is revealed when they cut his hair to screw an iron from which some weights hung.
“When the cervical was left in splinters, the doctor had had to open me up to remove them and build a new cervical. For that to seal I had to stand with my head up without moving for nine weeks looking at nothing but the ceiling, without being able to brush my hair that was still full of algae and salt water. There is nothing worse for a woman than having a dirty head… she thought she was going to die for me, ”Zaiter detailed.
His great friend, the singer Lisette Alvarezrecorded the composition of Sandra “You have to sing, you have to laugh”and shortly afterwards he composed the ballad “My friend”.
About her rehabilitation process, the singer-songwriter had revealed that every human being comes prepared with an inner strength that she does not know until life challenges her.
“It was learning to do everything I did before, but in a different way”he explained.
They also trained her to drive a car using her hands on a bus she bought secondhand in New York.
“The handlebar connected to the brake, the accelerator and the guide to turn. I learned to guide her and got my license. That’s what life is about, overcoming challengesZaiter recounted.
A constant figure on Puerto Rican television, he later hosted the talk show “Against all odds” (WIPR) and became the heart of “Telecomics” on Telemundo together with the characters of Dagmarita and El Pollito Yito, until its cancellation in 2001. Always linked to the child population, Sandra then made an exhortation in which she directed the children who followed her towards other figures such as Remi, Maria Chuzema, Chícola, Burbujita, Emmanuel Y Minstrel.
Her departure from channel 2 represented the end of her stage as an entertainer for children’s programs, one that earned her countless awards, including a doctorate. Honoris Causa from the Interamerican University in 1993the Tradition of Excellence in Child Development award in 1997 and the Public Service Medal of the Felisa Rincón de Gautier Foundation.
In mid-2020, the presenter was hospitalized for a long period of time due to injuries caused by a traffic accident. “Trying to get out of the way I collided with the fence on the Kennedy Avenue bridge and that took me to the hospital where they found that I had fractured the bones of both femurs and my wrist”told at that time in a telephone interview.
Similarly, in early 2021 Zaiter fell from his wheelchair while crossing a highway in San Juan, where he lived. “I think many have already heard that I fell from my wheelchair while crossing a street. There was a gap and my chair tipped over and I fell head-on, crashing into the street. Thank God it was not from the neck and only a bump on the forehead. I woke up with pain all over my body. Carlos, my neighbor, was walking down that street and ran to help me, as well as dear neighbors like Mary AnnMoll and Leticia”, explained the artist.
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Sandra Zaiter dies at the age of 78